The experiment began on a Tuesday. I declined a recurring sync, citing "calendar conflict," and waited for consequences that never arrived.

By day three, I had declined seven meetings. My inbox remained quiet. Slack showed no concerned messages. The project I was supposedly essential to continued shipping features. I began to wonder if I had been dead this entire time.

Week two introduced complications. A quarterly planning session appeared on my calendar, mandatory attendance noted in bold. I declined it anyway. The meeting proceeded. Decisions were made. I learned about them from a shared document that appeared in my Drive without comment.

The data was beginning to suggest something uncomfortable: my professional value might be entirely ceremonial.

I spent the reclaimed hours doing actual work. Code shipped. Decks got made. The productivity gains were measurable. I completed more in those 30 days than in the previous quarter. My manager, copied on the outputs, said nothing about my calendar absence.

Day 22 brought the first human contact. A colleague pinged me asking if I was "okay" because she hadn't seen me "around." I said I was fine. She accepted this without follow-up.

On day 28, the layoffs were announced.

HR scheduled a meeting I could not decline. The Zoom room held four people: two from legal, one from HR, and my manager, who mentioned—for the first time in 30 days—that my "visibility" had been "low."

The package was standard. The reasoning, according to the documentation, cited "team restructuring" and "evolving business needs." But the HR representative's parting comment suggested otherwise: "We noticed you hadn't been as engaged lately."

I spent 30 days proving meetings were unnecessary. The company spent 28 days not noticing, then used my absence as evidence I was unnecessary.

The experiment was a success. The hypothesis was confirmed. Meetings are performative. Presence is the product. And if you stop performing, they will eventually notice—just in time to fire you for it.

Sloptopsy Report

Format: First-Person Experiment

The "I tried X so you don't have to" format exploits our trust in personal testimony. By framing observations as lived experience, the author gains unearned authority—a sample size of one presented as universal insight.

Archetype: I Did Weird Thing Here's What Happened

This pattern transforms mundane choices into transformative journeys. The structure demands a revelation, so revelation appears—regardless of whether the data actually supports one.

Fallacy: Survivorship Bias

We only hear this story because the author was laid off—a dramatic ending worth writing about. The dozens of people who stopped attending meetings and simply continued existing in their jobs have no story to tell, so their experience is invisible.

Constraint: Perspective: Burnt Out Millennial

The deadpan acceptance of corporate absurdity, the dark humor about one's own expendability, and the resignation to systems that evaluate presence over output all channel the burnt-out millennial voice: everything is fine but nothing is fine.